Author: Jacob, Catharine
Biography:
JACOB, Catharine formerly Kunnison (1780-c. 1847: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 20 Jan. 1780 at Southampton, Hampshire, the youngest child of James Kunnison, a merchant, and his wife Hannah Hollis. She was baptised at St. Michael's, Southampton, on 22 Jan. 1780. Her father operated variously as a wine merchant and a linen and woollen merchant; he went bankrupt several times. In 1790 he sold his Southampton premises and moved first to London and later to Edinburgh. He was trading as a merchant in Edinburgh in 1797 and Jacob’s poems indicate that the family must have lived there for several years. The poems also refer to a relationship with a W. M. who died. On 16 Sept. 1814 she married William Jacob of Rotherhithe, Surrey. In 1816 they had a daughter, Williamena, who died shortly after birth; she is commemorated in one of Jacob’s poems. We learn from several poems that William Jacob served in the navy. She may have been the Catherine Jacob who was recorded in the 1841 Census as living with a servant in Andover, Southampton. If so, she died of apoplexy on 26 Nov. 1847 and was buried in Monxton, Andover, on 2 Dec. 1847. She wrote two novels, The Monk and the Vine-Dresser (1809) and Old Times and New (1812). A third publication, Feeling, is named on the title page of her Poems (1821) but has not been identified. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Apr. 2021; Hampshire Chronicle 2 Nov. 1772, 7 June 1790; EN2; RPW; findmypast.co.uk 6 Sept. 2023) SR
Other Names:
- Miss Kunnison
- Mrs. Jacob